


Republic City Night Report

by old_and_new_friends



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, Journalism, Multi, POV Outsider, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-13 11:21:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29401161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/old_and_new_friends/pseuds/old_and_new_friends
Summary: Bian Yumei struggles to piece together a romantic plot that forms around some of the highest profile people in Republic City.What she finds surprises her.
Relationships: Iroh II/Asami Sato, Iroh II/Mako (Avatar), Iroh II/Prince Wu (Avatar), Korra/Asami Sato, Korra/Mako (Avatar), Korra/Mako/Asami Sato, Mako/Asami Sato, Mako/Prince Wu (Avatar)
Kudos: 12





	Republic City Night Report

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally supposed to be a part of the Mako's Lovers series (if you like this give it a read!) but because all of those were written from the perspective of Mako and this one wasn't, I decided to scrap it. Enough people showed interest in reading it when I posted about the story on Tumblr so, I'm publishing it.
> 
> This is a bit cracky but not in a way that's intended to mock these types of relationships.
> 
> WARNINGS: the OC main character gets very close to stalking the group and becomes slightly obsessed with the matter.

Bian Yumei's journalistic career was about to end as soon as it began.

Fresh from the University of Republic City, Yumei joined the Republic City Night Report as a columnist due to her portfolio. Her new boss had been impressed with her ability to quickly cut to the heart of a matter.

The Republic City Night Report, was the go to newspaper for the morning news, covering anything that may have happened since the sun went down and the wilder side of the city came out to play. 

For Yumei to get a full column straight from school at such a paper had been unexpected. In fact Yumei hadn't even expected the interview, let alone the job.

When Yumei left the interview she had hoped for something more geared towards her interests. Her portfolio had been filled with political piece after political piece, and she had been expecting more of the same.

She got a gossip column instead.

While discontent, Yumei knew sometimes you had to crawl to walk and her new column "Date Night" was a test of wills. If she couldn't impress with it, she'd never get something better.

It soon became clear that this test of wills was harder than she first assumed and her boss was in fact testing her ability to weed out difficult information.

The last writer for "Date Night" had been fired for a very nasty piece on Avatar Korra and her supposed cheating on her girlfriend, Asami Sato. Sato had singularly ruined the woman's career and now Yumei was center stage of the action.

The problem was, the action was chaotic and Yumei could understand now the frustration that led her predecessor to write what she did.

The typical "Date Night" entry was simple. Starlet Ginger was seen on a date with former Wolfbat pro-bender Tahno. Former President Raiko and wife run into current President Zhu Li and husband at a banquet, as tensions run high over the recent election. Fire Lord Izumi steps out on a double date with husband, retired Commander Bumi, along with her brother-in-law Master Tenzin and his wife, Pema.

Easy enough, at least until Asami Sato was seen dancing the night away at a military fundraiser with General Iroh the Younger, Crown Prince of the Fire Nation.

Yumei almost didn't publish it, too afraid of what had happened to the last journalist to cross Asami Sato. She had once been close with the Future Industries' CEO but she wasn't quite willing to test that years old friendship.

She published it anyway. Tentatively, as a small blurb at the very end of a longer tale of the Princess of Omashu and her girlfriend's whirlwind vacation in the city.

She made no mention of Avatar Korra and kept any implication that the CEO and General were anything but good friends sharing a dance, far away from the article.

Yumei read through the last journalist’s articles, until she found the one she was looking for. It had been published three weeks before Yumei applied for the job and had a photo of Avatar Korra and one of her former pro-bending teammates cuddling closely as they watched the quarter-finals attached. 

Yumei looked between the photo of Avatar Korra and her mystery man, and the unpublished photo of Sato and General Iroh. The two women had released a statement following the first article's release, that they were in fact still together and that what they did in private was no one else's concern.

Yumei agreed, which is why politics and crime were where she really wanted to be, but Sato and Avatar Korra's private lives were putting food on her table at this point. Now if only she could understand it.

Her attention shifted the next night. Thoughts of Sato, the Avatar and Fire Nation Princes took a backseat as interim King Wu was caught on the town with a new paramour.

Her photographer partner handed her their shots of the couple eating dinner. It was simple enough and for once came with no immediate scandal. A quick bit of digging and she even had a name for the handsome man across the table, Detective Mako of the Republic City Police Department and King Wu's former bodyguard. 

They were cute together, and Yumei felt safe in printing the small speculation on the couple.

At least until General Iroh was photographed in a compromising position with King Wu two weeks later on the turtleduck boats, a well known couple's hangout.

Yumei may have jumped to the wrong conclusions and spent the night comparing the photos of King Wu and Detective Mako versus King Wu and General Iroh. They both looked like dates. The love struck look on Wu's face was nearly identical between the images. Detective Mako's smile was small and shy in one image, while General Iroh had a sultry look on his face in the other.

There was no denying the kiss though, so Yumei retracted her statements on King Wu and Detective Mako and instead wrote about the two royals from divided nations. It had a very Oma and Shu feeling to it when she was done.

That article had received a cease and desist from the Fire Lord, though more for the compromising photo her photographer had taken of the Prince, than what she had written.

Yumei's job was safe for now but there was no cause for relief.

Asami Sato, Detective Mako, General Iroh and King Wu were caught on what was unmistakably a double date not even a week later. Yumei nearly banged her head against a wall trying to figure out who was there with who. The contrasting images of Sato kissing both General Iroh and Detective Mako in front of each other didn't help. 

She eventually just decided not to go into detail and poured herself a large glass of wine.

Frustrated and at her whits end, Yumei may have overstepped when she accidentally found King Wu and General Iroh walking the streets of the city with their hands linked.

"Are you two dating?" Yumei asked, having marched up to the two men.

General Iroh tilted his head at her. "Yes, why?" He asked.

"Nothing," Yumei said, walking away.

She hadn't expected that to work and now she was even more confused.

If General Iroh and King Wu were dating then why was King Wu found on a date with Detective Mako? More importantly, what did Sato have to do with it?

Yumei could admit, in the privacy of her home, that this stupid gossip column was driving her mad. She sounded crazy on paper, constantly backtracking and running in circles over the same group of people.

She flopped down on her sofa and bit her lip. She refused to cry over this. She was a journalist and she would get to the bottom of whatever was going on.

She wished her boss had just given her a political piece and called it a day.

Her eyes snapped open and she sat up. Across from her was a blank wall she had been meaning to hang a tapestry on. 

Instead she raced to her desk and pulled out bulletin pins. Whenever a case or article became too hard in university, Yumei would make what she called plot maps.

She'd put all the players on the board and start connecting them. If it made her look slightly crazy, well, at this point she was.

Her wall now had the headshots of Asami Sato, Avatar Korra, General Iroh, King Wu and Detective Mako on it. Yumei could only hope one came over right now.

She connected a red line between Korra and Asami as she knew they were dating. She did the same for King Wu and General Iroh who had admitted to dating when she asked. 

She took a white string and looped it between King Wu and Detective Mako. Their relationship was too vague to pinpoint. She did the same with Sato and General Iroh. 

She nearly did the same between Sato and the detective but hesitated as she had no evidence other than a goodnight kiss that they were anything more than close friends. She used a blue string instead.

Things became no clearer after that.

Despite Yumei putting her in the middle, Avatar Korra wasn't very attached to the mess.

Yumei gave up and went to bed. She had already finished her article on Avatar Aang's daughter's new mystery girlfriend and she was drained.

Sleep didn't help, as the map on her wall soon became an obsession.

General Iroh and Detective Mako were seen wandering a shopping center together and at first Yumie wasn't interested until her photographer, the brave fool he was, placed a photo of the two men kissing in the changing room of a store on her desk. Yumei gave General Iroh the benefit of the doubt as to why he was half dressed in the photo, even as she pinned it to her wall and tied a red string between the two men.

She published nothing about the incident, still stinging from the last time she crossed the Fire Nation Royals.

The night Yumei had a dream. She was sitting in the stands of the new pro-bending arena. There was a heavy weight over her shoulder and a soft kiss was placed in her hair.

"Need more drink?"

Yumei looked up and saw the face of Detective Mako. Her brow furrowed in confusion.

"Sorry?" She asked, trying to pull away from him.

"Drink?" He asked again, shaking his cup for emphasis.

Yumei handed him her cup as she watched him walk away.

She blinked and she was sitting across him at a restaurant. She glanced around confused.

"You seem spacey," Mako said, placing down his menu. "Are you okay?"

"I-" Yumei started before the word blurred around her and she found herself outside the restaurant as the detective bent down to kiss her.

When he pulled back, Yumei was half dressed in a changing room.

She gasped awake after that and stumbled to her wall of images. The wall had become a maze in the past few days but Yumei tore the whole thing down before rebuilding it in a daze.

When she stepped back a new image sat at the center of the mess.

"What are you doing Detective Mako?" Yumei asked. "Who are you doing?"

Yumei giggled slightly at her own joke before looking around her apartment.

This had gone too far.

Maybe she should just try asking again?

She nearly handed in her resignation that morning but didn't at the last minute. Instead she went for a walk at lunch to clear her head. Avatar Park wasn't the best place to do so if she didn't want a reminder of her headache, but it was the closest.

A laugh filled the air, one all too familiar to her now. Yumei turned with dread to see who Asami Sato was on a date with now only to find the entirety of Avatar Korra's friend group sprawled around a picnic blanket.

It made no sense.

King Wu sat firmly planted in Detective Mako's lap even as Avatar Korra leaned back against the detective's shoulder. Asami Sato sat across from them curled up against General Iroh.

The only predictable two were President Zhu Li’s secretary and his girlfriend, the only daughter of Zaofu's founders, who sat giggling next to each other.

Yumei didn't know what possessed her, but she walked over anyway.

"I'm a reporter for the Republic City Night Report," Yumei said. "I know you probably don't want to talk to me considering your past with the Date Night column but I have to know, as it’s slowly driving me mad, who's dating who here?"

The group exchanged glances but were surprisingly willing to answer.

The answer they gave would change her career for the better.

_Love is a complicated mystery and unlocking the wonders of such an emotion can be difficult. "Date Night" prides itself on the celebration of this emotion and all the facets of its nature._

_One such facet has enthralled readers of "Date Night" for a while, long before I took up the mantle. What at first seemed to the previous writer of the column a tricky and deceitful love triangle between Avatar Korra, CEO of Future Industries, Asami Sato and Detective Mako of the Republic City Police, is actually something much more meaningful._

_Polyamorous relationships are relationships that include more than two people. They, much like monogamous relationships, come in many shapes and sizes._

_Some come in the form of a closed relationship with three or more people, or polyfidelity. For an example of such a relationship look no further than the Governor of North Chung-Ling, her husband and their new girlfriend._

_This however is only part of the case with Avatar Korra, Asami Sato and Detective Mako. The relationship that exists between the three, as well as General Iroh of the United Forces and Interim King Wu of the Earth Kingdom is a bit more complex._

_The relationship between the five is what is known as a semi-open relationship, in this instance what the group refers to as their polycule, which is a relationship where one is able to date multiple partners within a defined group._

_Within the group there are various different relationship dynamics, which they were willing to share to varying degrees._

_Avatar Korra and Asami Sato in this instance have remained mostly monogamous to each other and any outside contact is done through specific, predetermined conditions agreed on by both women. They have chosen to keep those terms to themselves._

_They both have independent relationships with Detective Mako, while only Sato dates General Iroh._

_General Iroh willingly came out as Asexual Biromantic, meaning he experiences little to no sexual attraction, while still being romantically attracted to both men and women. General Iroh jokingly called Detective Mako, Asami Sato and King Wu his dating pool. He also seemed humored by his new reputation gained from his compromising photo, stating, "people now have assumptions of me that are hilariously wrong and it's fun playing into them. It's just a kiss, nothing to get worked up over."_

_King Wu stated that he only has relationships with Detective Mako and General Iroh, while Detective Mako has varying types of relationships with all four of the others._

_Both refused to give more details on the topic._

_Ultimately, "Date Night" wishes the five the best in their relationships, however they define them, and celebrates that there's a little more love in the world tonight._

**Author's Note:**

> Just to be clear, I don't condone Yumei's behavior in this fic. It's not her business even if it is her livelihood, but Yumei going "meh, whatever" does not make a story.


End file.
